Let’s Build a Giant Thing

Every so often—say, once in a generation—an opportunity presents itself for humanity to leave its mark on prosperity by constructing a giant thing. We are building such a thing and we’d like you to be a part of it.

This is not a fundraiser for another obscure business, or a call to alms to help recuperate some unfortunate victims or cities. We’re not raising money to research diseases. We are not feeding orphans. We are not supporting science or religion, or any number of so-called “philanthropic” pursuits. No, this is more. Much more.

We are building a thing. A giant thing. Something that will traverse the skyline for centuries and poke its head into the heavens regardless of what happens to the environment or civilization, or life as we know it. Something we can point to and show grandchildren or strangers and say, “See that giant thing over there. I had a hand in building it.” That’s what we’re talking about here. Something we can be proud of. Something that signifies how, when we all come together, we can accomplish any number of giant things.

What is this giant thing, you might ask. It could be anything, really. It might be a giant, 400-story cement monkey that doubles as an apartment building, and future people are always talking about heading to cocktail parties there. “Where’s the party?” “The monkey.” “Of course the monkey, but specifically?” “Penthouse, near the left eyelash.” That’s how giant this thing might be. It could be a giant bronze swirly garden maze, and when citizens begin climbing it, after a quarter-mile or so they notice there’s a massive river flowing at them. They’ll start running in the other direction, only to realize there’s a giant marble coming their way. They’ll run back the other way and some other weird engineering feat will await. Eventually, after a few hours or weeks, they’ll escape and share their adventures and cell phone pictures, and the legend will grow. Our legend.

See, most entities raising money to start businesses or charities use funds for operational costs, or staffing issues, or fancy logos. They waste hard-earned money not on the goal itself, but every critical step that has to occur before they reach the goal. This giant thing is different. We don’t have an office, nor will we. We don’t accept credit cards or issue receipts for tax purposes. We’re not even setting up a website. We are devoting 100 percent of the proceeds—which is nearly all of it, minus some allotments to cover basic caloric needs and a social media editor—to build this giant, charismatic thing.

We get it. There are clever startups raising money to visit Mars, or mine the asteroids. It won’t work. There are heart-wrenching charities soliciting funds for stillborn Dalmatians and overfished carp. Everything dies no matter how much money we throw at the problem. But this thing we’re building—this giant, beautiful, magnificent thing—will exist long after the last glacier melts, long after the final beast whimpers, just sitting there outside our kitchen windows, waiting for some pretentious alien species that outlived us to arrive and discover our giant thing and reflect, “Wow, these humans really had their shit together when they wanted to.”